About

The Need To Send

The most unusual subject for climbing photography today is the indoor recreational climber. Not all climbers have the possibility or ability to climb in epic landscapes or the hardest problems in the world, which tends to be the motive for climbing photography.

That does not mean recreational climbers have any less will or motivation to send the problem in front of them. All climbers are struggling at the peak of their own mental and physical abilities. This is rarely captured. All climbers are different but once on the wall, we are all the same. We share the same urge, the need to send.

No. 29 - Moa Kristiansson

Over 10 months, 154 climbers were photographed. The photographs in this book are not staged and no instructions were given to the climbers. What is presented is the daily fascinating struggle of the recreational indoor climber.

Why this is important

Photography within the climbing community is heavily focused on the elites and the exotic climbing locations around the globe. With all right. Climbing the hardest problems in the world and setting up rigs with ladders on big walls just to get the shot is by itself an amazing feat. We need those photos to give us inspiration and break the beliefs of what's actually possible.

But the climbing community is not built up by only elites and professional photographers don't grow on trees. Climbing is making it's way into the main stream and is now a part of the Olympic Games. The climbing gyms play a crucial part of this making the sport available for a larger crowd.

No. 9 - Patrik Thärnå

Traditionally indoor climbing is regarded as training for outdoor climbing and therefore not getting the same attention as the rest of the sport. But the new generation of climbers evolving in the climbing gyms are quickly becoming an significant part of the climbing community.

The phenomenal part of climbing is that despite our difference in physical ability, mental ability, religion, race, gender or other made up segmentation, we are all the same once we are on the wall and share the same struggle.

The photo book

The photo book is 25×20 cm (10×8 in) hardcover, 136 pages long, and includes 200+ photos of the 154 amazing recreational climbers featured in the project.

Posters

Use photo number to indicate which photo you want as your print. All photos are available in the formats below during the Kickstarter campaign:

20×30 cm professional quality photo paper, matte C-print.

30×45 cm professional quality photo paper, matte C-print.

70×100 cm Hahnemühle Fine Art (210 gr), archival grade print.

The posters have a design with white border and the project name and climber number printed under the photo. The black frame is only for visual reference but black framing is recommended.

Final versions might differ slightly in design.

No. 95 - Emil Håkansson

No. 79 - Ida Andersson

What the funding will be used for

The funding will mainly be used for reaching the print volume necessary to get the print cost of the photo book down to that which is requested in the rewards. It will also go to printing and shipping the posters as well as shipping the photo books.

All reward prices are exclusive to the Kickstarter campaign.

Humanistic photography

My goal with this project and upcoming projects is to establish a humanistic driven business. My goal is to run photography projects with the purpose of making a humanistic profit, not a capitalistic profit.

Practically this means I'll be running my business like any other business but with the difference that a large part of the profits will be used for society building purposes, the rest will go to funding my next project.

For this specific project I decided that 80% of the profits will go to improve society. I asked the climbers for suggestions and the most frequent response was The Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation (Barncancerfonden), so that's where the main part of the profits go. The remaining profits will go into funding the next project.

My main driver is that i want to do something fun and perhaps even meaningful.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge SEK 6,000 or more
About $640

9B - Private photo session

A 1 hour private photo session with you in the climbing gym! You'll get a unique photo book with photos of you and a 70x100 print of your choice as well as a signed copy of The Need To Send photo book. (Only available in Stockholm).